Impact of smartphone usage on university students' scientific literacy: a mixed-methods approach with importance-performance analysis

Previous studies have explored scientific literacy in various educational contexts; however, limited research has specifically examined how smartphone usage is associated with university students' scientific literacy. Given the increasing integration of smartphones into higher education and science learning, it is important to understand the psychological and behavioral mechanisms underlying smartphone use and scientific literacy development. This study aimed to investigate the direct and indirect relationships of subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, attitudes, usage intention, and actual smartphone use with university students' scientific literacy.

A mixed-methods approach was employed by combining qualitative interviews with quantitative structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The study examined the relationships among subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, attitudes, usage intention, actual smartphone usage, and scientific literacy. In addition, an Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) was conducted to identify the most influential predictors of scientific literacy.

The findings revealed that subjective norms and attitudes significantly and positively associated with university students' scientific literacy both directly and indirectly through usage intention and actual smartphone use. Actual smartphone use was also directly and positively associated with scientific literacy, while perceived behavioral control was positively associated with usage intention but showed no significant indirect association with scientific literacy. Furthermore, the IPMA results showed that the importance ranking for predicting scientific literacy was subjective norms, attitudes, actual smartphone use, usage intention, and perceived behavioral control.

Smartphone usage plays a significant role in enhancing university students' scientific literacy when supported by positive attitudes and social influences. The findings provide theoretical support for integrating smartphones into science education and offer practical implications for developing purposeful smartphone-based learning strategies to support scientific literacy among university students.